ILX Parenting 5: I'm a big kid now

I would be cool with waking up a little earlier in the morning if he would just go to sleep earlier at night

When people talk about co-sleeping do they mean actually in bed with them?

technically it's considered as co-sleeping if the baby/child is in the same room. Health professionals use 'bed sharing' for what we consider co-sleeping

Still co-sleeping and it's better since August sort of stopped nursing. She nurses a tiny bit before bed. Yes it stopped and I shouted WEANED! But no...
Co-sleeping up to 18 months or so, I was sleep nursing, no problems. After that, I'd wake up every time and she was nursing on and off most of the night and I couldn't sleep through it. So if you are nursing, co-sleeping can be an all night, Vegas buffet for some kiddos.

Thanks, Sunny!

Yeah, Molly still wakes me up several times a night to nurse, I bat her away a lot of the times. If I had the energy I'd nightwean properly, haha. I'm still hoping the other night sleeping through will become the norm, sooner or later.

haha yeah all-night buffet is exactly why I don't bed share! Unless he wakes crying at 5am because I'm just too tired to do anything else (this happens pretty much all the time. But this too shall pass...)

Tera I had to carry Ivy out of the park today after she kept nearly falling off the slide steps but wouldn't let me stand close enough to catch her, then she wouldn't rest and drink water. And oh did she cry (after throwing herself in the ground). (Also she fell in a mud puddle but that happened early on so I let her keep going in her filthy state.)

Relatedly she's about to have her first shower with mom.

Scik do you know about p0c0 drom?

Nora has seen Poco several times! He's from Dawlish!

In other news she only woke three times between 7:30pm and 6:30am!

Yay!

I would just like to say what a gift it is when your oldest child finally works out how to make breakfast for herself and her brother and turn the TV on. Hello morning sleep in!

Aaaaaarrrrgh - afternnon nap seems to be disappearing - aaaaaarrrghh!

Yeah we've sort of given up on that lately. Morning ones still decent enough for the most part. He's also been straight up awful at sleeping through the night for the last week which is slowly starting to kill me.

Happy Father's Day!

I don't know if it's work or parenthood or what but my attention span for books has diminished to like, mysteries and humor (also decided I would read all the Discworld books (we all need goals), which are definitely at a sweet spot), but I am reading the Honest Toddler book and 1) it's really funny and 2) it's a surprisingly useful parenting book. Ivy was a really mellow baby so without a touchstone for how kooky toddlers can be, I would be a lot more worried about what is pretty standard toddler behavior.

Although after a few days of her just not sleeping, being ultra clingy, and also looking really wobbly when she walked, on a hunch I took her to the pediatrician before I wrote it all off as 18-month sleep regression, and it turns out she has another ear infection. So there's that. But stuff like literally climbing up my body if I don't pick her up fast enough, crying because she wants something and then crying when she gets it and then crying when I take it away, or some pretty awesome tantrums over... nothing visible to the adult eye, or her new thing of running in the opposite direction when you say "Ivy, come here"* is all part of the fun of toddlerhood.

*Overheard a couple of excellent dad/daughter exchanges recently, including Jeff saying, "Ivy, no. No!" and Ivy responding with a hearty, "YEAH!" or Jeff trying to get Ivy ready to leave the house and then incredulously saying, "Are you... running away from me?"

Oh god or this new thing where she does things that she knows we don't want her to do like holding out her food like she's going to drop it from her high chair, looking at us, grinning, and when start to reach for the food, dropping it. Or if we catch it she'll immediately grab her milk and throw that on the floor (which is how I know Take and Toss cups are not named after their ability withstand being tossed around without leaking). Or reaching for something she knows she's not supposed to touch, and looking at me, then I say, "No..." and she draws her hand back, then the mischievous grin, then she touches it.

All boundary testing, obviously, which I find by turns hilarious, delightful, and exhausting.

I have that thing with books too. At this rate I'll be reading airport crime any minute now

That is actually really comforting. I've always been an avid reader and I just feel like such a dummy. My library loan for Amy Poehler's ebook expired before I could finish it, ffs. I'm not exactly slogging my way through Ivanhoe, here.

Well, light reading recommendation: I've really been digging these Shetland Island mysteries by Ann Cleeves.

I dream of some day reading another book or going to a movie.

Former English major here. I mostly just read music biographies now.

I'm an English major, too. I used to read Virginia Woolf to relax when I was in law school! Now I'm looking into the supernatural steampunk romance genre...

Okay, it is definitely making me feel better that you smarties are similarly reading challenged.

I went from reading trashy fantasy/SF to... nothing

I gave up reading books years ago so I'm just holding steady post baby. Unlikely that will change for the next 2 decades.

I mostly just read music biographies now.

― how's life, Tuesday, June 23, 2015 3:56 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

me too

I was on Wodehouse for a while.

The grabbing/dropping/testing thing doesn't last too long, i think, but it's pretty challenging while it's there. For Ella it was cheekiy grin/pick up something she knows she can't have, then flinging it violently away and running from the room as soon as we noticed what she was up to. It's a tactic I'm tempted to try next time I'm in trouble at work, tbh.

I'm actually reading more now than I used to, which probably comes from being in a room on my own and going to bed earlier than I used to.

Last night was pretty horrific, sleepwise. Nora went down at 7:15 as usual, and she has been going to half 10. But she woke at quarter past 9. wtf? And then nothing would get her back to sleep, so we basically did an impromptu CIO, except I stayed in the room with her and held her hand a bit while she screamed for 40 minutes and then nodded off. But that only lasted for 90 minutes, and then she work every two hours from midnight till 6.

Fun times.

I read more dumb stuff but I put it down to getting dumber as I get older, not necessarily to having kids.

can't say parenting really affected my reading at all - most of my reading is done during my morning commute and at night before bed anyway. lazing around on the couch reading on a sunday afternoon doesn't really happen v much anymore tho

CRAWLING ALERT

wahhht
Good going, Nora!
maybe it'll tire her out at night?!

Yeah! Also it is said that sleep disturbances often presage developmental milestones, so fingers crossed for you on the sleeping front. Also have fun baby proofing!

ugh in that case I expect my kids to start doing algebra next month

We've definitely found poor sleep comes before a leap. Also, speech has more or less disappeared in the last month while F's been getting to grips with walking.

Heh xp

Ivy is full speed ahead with the babbling that has the rhythm and cadence of human speech but is actually utterly nonsensical, which just amazes me every time. She was helping Jeff brush his teeth this morning, which is like her favorite thing right now, and when they finished, she ran-toddled up to me and started babbling excitedly, which sounded like she was probably telling me about the awesome tooth brushing assistance she just rendered except there were no actual English (or Spanish afaict) words uttered.

But then, at the same time, there are plenty of words she actually knows but won't use, such as when she wants a drink of my water (ie always), even though she can say not only "water" but also "agua," she just points and goes "Ma ma ma ma ma." And when I say, "Water. Can you say water?" she opens her mouth like a baby bird and leans towards the glass. See also: milk, kiss, cracker, snack. It's all just pointing and "ma ma ma ma."

Like I actually have said, "Use your words."

D is walking like a champ, almost breaking into running at times, which leads to fun things like taking a header into the TV console and getting a bruised line on his forehead. J is standing but not quite walking yet. Both of them are chatty as HELL and J often does sing-songy stuff and can match pitches we give him. J is totally embracing sippy cups and D hates them with a fiery passion. They're both eating practically everything we put in front of them, which is nice, except for when J gets bored and starts playing the "how much food can I drop on the floor" game.

xxp: oh that sounds so familiar; they'll bust out a word and you're like "ooh say that again" and it's all "DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA *raspberry*"

xp: "Use your words" is supplanting "no" as the most commonly-used phrase in our house

I was feeling quite proud of the advancement mine's made in eating (still early days) but now he's discovered blowing raspberries with bottom lip out, while eating. Sending food quite an impressive distance!

Nora's sleep has actually been getting a bit better over the last few days; night before last she slept from 10pm to 2am, which amazed Em.

I mean this with love and empathy

but

lol

Mrs. Life took both the kids to see Jurassic World this afternoon. I was pretty worried about our little one. As I've mentioned before, you never can tell what she's going to be cool with. Fine with zombies from Walking Dead; totally freaked out the other day at a Powerpuff Girls ep. I was worried because in the trailer, there are a lot of dinosaurs that get killed by the main predator. And she definitely knows about predator/prey relationships, like our cat kills house mice and she finds their corpses, but on the other hand she's a big dinosaur train fan, which really soft pedals all that stuff.

So I anxiously awaited my wife's report. Would they have to leave early? Spend the whole movie in the hallway while my son finished watching? Will she still love dinosaurs?

"She had a real blast. Really liked watching the people get eaten."

hahaha awww

it is said that sleep disturbances often presage developmental milestones

This is curious as Cecil was sleeping like a real asshole for about a week and a half there during which time he went from half-assed getting up on all fours to dragging his legs to suddenly being able to crawl incredibly fast and go from sitting to crawling without any hesitation. It was kind of amazing to see, and now he's sleeping much better.

Downside of this is that he REALLY wants to put his hands in the dog's food and water dish and the dog, who has been very good with him, REALLY does not want him or anyone other small animal to go near her food. She's done this with other dogs who have come into our house, and is the same with the suddenly mobile baby. She knows we will rain hell down upon her for growling or biting at him so her only recourse is to lick him when he starts heading into the kitchen and she can't understand why he isn't giving back the proper dog signals and keeps charging on.

Poor dog.

Em and Nora are away for a couple of days with Em's mum to see relatives. wtf is Nora gonna be doing when she gets back?!

Pam was suffering with labyrinthitis the other day and there wasn't much in for dinner, so she gave Ava & Lulu a list, some money and a time limit and sent them to Sainsbury's. It's only a 3min walk, crossing a quiet cul de sac. They did well! I thought it would be 20 boxes of Jaffa Cakes and Lego minifigs but they apparently excelled. So grown up. Conflicting feelings about this independence!

Oh wow.

That's so cool!

It is! WTG Ava and Lulu. It gave me some feelings, though.

Even my husband can't so that, so well done
/90s detergent ad

LOL